


Before

by sad_goomy



Series: Gladmoon Week 2019 [5]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, First Kiss, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Temporary Amnesia, lonashipping, you're telling me they send a 12 year old into space and nothing bad happens??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 16:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18265220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sad_goomy/pseuds/sad_goomy
Summary: Moon lays in the bed, and Gladion didn’t realize one person could have so many wires attached to them. She’s three shades paler, and her gray eyes are so foggy, and even with the beep of machinery everything is too quiet.She looks at him, and she tilts her head towards her mother, brows furrowed in confusion, and her mother is leaning in to whisper something – suddenly Sun’s warning reaches his ears.“She won’t remember you.”





	Before

 

**Yarrow**

_Healing, courage, and protection_

 

* * *

 

The trip back from Ultra Space doesn’t go as smoothly as they hoped. 

They don’t let Gladion see her for the first week – family only, the doctors say. 

But he has other things distracting him anyway, like his mother’s critical condition. It’s quickly decided that Lillie will go with her to Kanto, and he’ll hang back to try and keep Aether afloat, and there’s plane tickets and calls to specialists and last-minute board meetings. 

As the dust settles and the guilt creeps in, he gets a call from Hau. 

He’s going to visit Moon, because they’re letting others visit now, and does he want to come (because Hau really doesn’t think he can bear to see her like that alone)? 

So he goes to the hospital, and for once Hau is quiet, and everything is too quiet. 

Sun catches them outside the door, and Gladion realizes that the last time he saw him, he was screaming, tears and snot streaming down his face. 

They greet each other in barely more than murmurs, and then Sun clears his throat and shifts his weight again and can’t quite release the breath he’s holding. “So, uh, she’s doing fine, but...” A sigh, a look at both of them, and then he says something that Gladion can’t quite comprehend. 

The words are swimming around in his head, and they only muddle together when they step inside. Hau goes first and lets out a soft gasp, and her mother looks up at them with an exhausted smile. 

Moon lays in the bed, and Gladion didn’t realize one person could have so many wires attached to them. She’s three shades paler, and her gray eyes are so foggy, and even with the beep of machinery everything is too quiet. 

She looks at him, and she tilts her head towards her mother, brows furrowed in confusion, and her mother is leaning in to whisper something – suddenly Sun’s warning reaches his ears. 

 

 _“_ _She won’t remember you."_  

 

And Moon just watches them both with a smile, and Hau is stepping towards her bed and saying something and Gladion just stands there and  _everything is too quiet_. 

 

* * *

 

The nurse explains traumatic amnesia to him and Hau in the hallway. She tells them that it’s temporary, that it’s luckily only affected more recent memories of Alola, that really, her memories should come back to her soon. 

“How long?” 

Hau and the nurse turn, and Gladion is trying to keep his breathing steady as he repeats, “How long until she remembers again?” 

There’s no good answer she can give him, and so the nurse simply tells him the truth. 

“We aren’t sure.” 

It’s quiet again, but not in Gladion’s head. Everything inside of his body is five seconds too fast, and everything outside his body is five seconds too slow. There’s white noise in his head but he can hear Hau ask, “Is there anything we can do to help her remember?” 

She tells them that visiting can help, that sometimes an old photo or story might spark something but  it’s just a matter of time, and try not to overwhelm her. 

Then the white noise is too loud and he’s not sure when but he’s following Hau out of the hospital and the static only clears when the sun blinds him. 

 

* * *

 

He’s back the next day. 

But this time he doesn’t have Hau, and her mom is here, and he has no idea where to begin. 

“Those are lovely flowers.” 

His eyes flicker down to his hands, and he’s almost startled by the sight of a bouquet in his hands. “Yeah, I just...” When he looks back up, both of them are staring at him, and it’s not unkind, but he has to swallow something acrid when he realizes Moon’s expression is guarded. 

It’s the smile she gave him before he really knew her, before they saw the best and worst of each other, before they started staring at the other person in quiet moments and trying not to get caught. 

“Here.” 

Her mother mercifully takes the flowers from his arms, and she sets them on the windowsill, where a line of cards and balloons and plushy Stufful has formed. 

Moon nods in his direction, giving him a small, “Thank you.” 

He wonders if anyone has tried to tell her about him. Did Hau drop his name when he visited? Has Sun mentioned a rival? 

But she keeps looking at him like a total stranger, and before she can open her mouth to apologize, he blurts out a goodbye and rushes back out into the hallway. 

 

* * *

 

It’s another week before he works up the nerve to visit again, and even then, it takes a text from Hau saying that she’s looking better, that things are starting to come back in bits and pieces, and she’s still the Moon they remember. 

Gladion wonders if that’s ironic or not, but dissecting it puts a pit in his stomach and he dismisses the thought on the elevator ride up to her floor. 

Sun is closing the door behind him when Gladion walks down the hall, and he blinks away his surprise at seeing the blond. 

They exchange pleasantries, and it’s awkward, and Gladion realizes too late that he’s not exactly friends with Sun. He didn’t mean for that to slip through the cracks, but it has, and he has to clear his throat before asking, “How is she?” 

“Better.” The boy pauses, searching Gladion’s face for a moment. “She asked about you the other day.” 

His hopes rise. 

“Well, she asked about the awkward guy who dropped off some flowers, and I figured it was you.” 

And his hopes fall. 

“Yeah, that was me.” He feels his face heat up and looks to the left, staring at the room number on the wall.  

Sun watches him a moment longer, and then for the first time since Moon returned from Ultra Space, the corner of his lips quirks up. He mumbles a goodbye and brushes past Gladion, shaking his head and secretly wishing the boy luck. 

With nothing else to distract him, Gladion steels himself and steps inside, finding that Moon still isn’t quite alone. Her team is out, crowded around the hospital bed as she laughs at the Pokémon, weakly petting the feathers she can reach on her Decidueye. Her Toxapex is actually the first one to notice him, and it cries out with a smile, drawing attention to him as he stands awkwardly by the door. 

“Hi again.” He bends down to carefully pet the grinning Toxapex standing below him (just like Moon showed him how to, avoiding the spikes). 

Her Decidueye hoots a greeting, and Moon smiles, brows furrowed for a moment as she thinks. “Hello...Gladion, right?” He nods, and her hand drops from Decidueye with a small frown. “I’m sorry, I don’t -” 

“I figured,” he cuts her off, because to hear the words out of her own mouth might just break him again. It’s hard enough to watch her sitting up, still connected to so many machines, and moving so slowly. Toxapex whines for a moment, and then she shuffles back towards the rest of the team. 

Moon watches, clearing her throat of something and unable to look at Gladion. “There’s still so much I don’t remember. It wasn’t even until Sun brought these guys that I remembered I even have Pokémon.” 

The chair by her bed is empty, but he stands at the door. It feels wrong to sit in it somehow, because really that should be for someone more important, and does he even count as her friend?  

Is there even a way for him to tell her that they might have been on the verge of something more? 

He’s been silent for too long and she fidgets with her fingers, ignoring the dull pain in her joints. “Do you want to sit?” 

“I can...” His eyes flicker to the door, then back to her small form and that smile for a stranger. “I can go.” 

She tilts her head, pursing her lips. “I’d rather you stay,” she says, voice small and eyes hesitant, “If you can.” 

He can, he knows he can with a deep breath, and he walks around her team and takes a seat and doesn’t know where to start. 

So she asks, “How did we meet?” 

And he starts at the beginning. 

 

* * *

 

By his fourth visit, she still can’t remember him, but there are bits and pieces that surface. 

 

The nicknames flow from her without a second thought, as though they never left her mind; for once, he’s happy to be called Gladbag. 

When he visits with Hau while she’s eating lunch, and she offers Hau her malasada without prompting, mumbling about how Gladion doesn’t like sweets. 

Now she’s telling him about the physical therapy she’s started as she struggles to open a pack of fruit snacks he got her from the vending machine. Her fingers fumble as she explains that it’s not so bad, just frustrating, because it must have been the gravity and the lack of equipment and now her body just feels a little wrong. 

 

He lets her struggle for a moment more, a stubborn huff pushing past her frown. “Want me to try?” 

She holds it out to him and he smirks, only to struggle with the plastic seconds later. “Not so easy, is it?” 

There’s a pause and then he’s cursing under his breath and she’s laughing delicately at him and it’s so close to Before until the fluorescent light above them flickers. 

“How hungry are you?” he asks, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. 

She grins, a teasing lilt on the edges of her voice. “Starving.” 

He’s flipped the colorful little package at least seventeen times, trying to tear at different angles, and he almost has it once but his fingers slip. 

And then, (finally,) it bursts open and gummies scatter across her bed. Gladion winces at the sight, turning to her with an apologetic smile. “At least I opened it?” 

There’s something in her eyes, and her lips are parted as she stares at him – not like a stranger this time – and he opens his mouth to ask what she’s thinking when he finds that he can’t. 

Because her lips are on his. 

It’s quick and heated and then she’s pulled back, her hands still cupping his face as she grins. 

“I just remembered everything, I think,” she explains slowly, and he knows even before she continues because that spark is back in her eyes when she’s smiling at him, “Including how long I’ve been waiting to do that.” 

Then her fingers are off his cheeks and lifting a Pecha-shaped gummy to her mouth, popping it in with a smile as he just continues to stare at her, dumb-founded. There’s only one question that can manage its way out of the blank space his brain has become. 

“How long would you say you’ve been waiting?” 

She chews thoughtfully, tapping her chin with a finger as she looks at him and she’s back, all of her is back, and she’s smiling at him like he’s so much more than a friend. Then there’s an impish spark in her eye, and she laughs, lets it all out without a guard, and he’s laughing too when she says it because of course she would (and he wouldn’t have it any other way now). 

 

 _“I don’t remember.”_  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to go for sort of a dreamy, stream-of-consciousness feel but I have no idea if that came across
> 
> Gladion probably realizes later with a little annoyance that it was seeing him struggle to open children's fruit snacks like an idiot that triggered Moon to remember him, rather than all the undoubtedly cool stories he told her


End file.
